Dell Dimension 9100 hand me down, No Sound

[techwanabe]

My sister's Dell Dimension 9100 was having display problems among other things and so I decided to help her back up her data and re-install windows XP fresh. The video problems persisted so she decided to buy a new computer and give the Dell to me. I bought a new video card and that seems to have solved the display problems but there is no sound.

I've tried plugging speakers and headsets into two different speaker ports on the back and there is no sound at all. There is a speaker Icon in the tray, and the drivers appear to have been installed and look ok. I used the drivers from Dells website for this computer.

Now I have noticed there is a Creative Sound Blaster Live 24 bit sound card installed and the onboard video is disabled in the bios. I don't if this is because the on board sound was bad or they just wanted a better sound card. I went to creative's site and downloaded the corresponding drivers. Still no sound. I'm running out of idea's. Help!

 

[VirtualLarry]

On a computer that old, check the FP_AUDIO jumpers on the motherboard. If it used to be connected to a case with front-panel audio, then there would have been a connector there. If it was subsequently disconnected, then you have to connect two jumpers across it in order to get sound out of the rear ports. I found this out from buying some surplus OEM HP / Asus S478 mobos from geeks.com. Installed drivers, couldn't get sound, but Windows thought that the sound was working. Needed the jumpers.

 

[techwanabe]

I'll check for those jumpers. I've built and worked on quite a few computers but this is a new one for me. This Dell is about 6 years old. It does have front audio panel plugs, and I did try plugging speakers and headphones into it but no sound there either. It does look like Windows thinks the drivers are there, and all the usual things like the speaker icon and controls look good to, just no sound.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Hopefully this image loads. The jumpers should be where the solid blue areas are. There are two of them.

If it actually has a FP_AUDIO connector plugged in, then obviously it won't have the jumpers. In that case, you could try unplugged the FP_AUDIO connector, add the jumpers, and see if you get sound out of the rear jacks.

 

[Lanyap]

The SB probably came with the system since the 9100 was a high end Dimension system in the day. It may be bad. Try enabling onboard sound and plugging speakers into the motherboard green sound jack.

 

[jsalpha2]

You probably need to physically remove the Creative Sound Blaster card for the on board audio to work. You may need to go to control panel and uninstall any creative software as well. Once you get the on board sound working, if it is not good enough, you can try re-installing the sound card in a different PCI slot. Good Luck